Premium
Towards an eco‐phylogenetic framework for infectious disease ecology
Author(s) -
FountainJones Nicholas M.,
Pearse William D.,
Escobar Luis E.,
AlbaCasals Ana,
Carver Scott,
Davies T. Jonathan,
Kraberger Simona,
Papeş Monica,
Vandegrift Kurt,
WorsleyTonks Katherine,
Craft Meggan E.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
biological reviews
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.993
H-Index - 165
eISSN - 1469-185X
pISSN - 1464-7931
DOI - 10.1111/brv.12380
Subject(s) - phylogenetic tree , biology , phylogenetics , host (biology) , infectious disease (medical specialty) , ecology , evolutionary biology , community , coevolution , evolutionary ecology , disease , genetics , habitat , medicine , pathology , gene
Identifying patterns and drivers of infectious disease dynamics across multiple scales is a fundamental challenge for modern science. There is growing awareness that it is necessary to incorporate multi‐host and/or multi‐parasite interactions to understand and predict current and future disease threats better, and new tools are needed to help address this task. Eco‐phylogenetics (phylogenetic community ecology) provides one avenue for exploring multi‐host multi‐parasite systems, yet the incorporation of eco‐phylogenetic concepts and methods into studies of host pathogen dynamics has lagged behind. Eco‐phylogenetics is a transformative approach that uses evolutionary history to infer present‐day dynamics. Here, we present an eco‐phylogenetic framework to reveal insights into parasite communities and infectious disease dynamics across spatial and temporal scales. We illustrate how eco‐phylogenetic methods can help untangle the mechanisms of host–parasite dynamics from individual (e.g. co‐infection) to landscape scales (e.g. parasite/host community structure). An improved ecological understanding of multi‐host and multi‐pathogen dynamics across scales will increase our ability to predict disease threats.